


Almost Like Breathing

by glassclosetcastiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Episode: s09e23 Do You Believe in Miracles?, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, M/M, Post-Episode: s09e23 Do You Believe In Miracles?, Profound Bond, Sad, ache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 13:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2469875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassclosetcastiel/pseuds/glassclosetcastiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's dead, too."</p><p>You hear the words, distantly, as if through glass or from behind a thick curtain. </p><p>No, you think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Like Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what I was thinking. This is the worst. This is the saddest, most hopeless thing I've ever written and I'm sobbing. Don't read it unless you're mentally prepared.

I

"To save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you drape yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right? Well, guess what? He's dead, too."

You hear the words, distantly, as if through glass or from behind a thick curtain. It takes you a moment to process. _No,_ you think. _He's a liar, this is what he does. He lies. These are lies._ Still, you feel a sudden thundering behind your ribs, behind the bones and sinew that are now, inexplicably, your own. You try not to let it show on your face but you've lost all control of your muscles. They act of their own volition. You quickly pull yourself together- tuck the fear and pain and overwhelming anxiety away and hope that it will stay there until it can be extinguished. There are things to be done.

II

You fly to Earth and you can feel it. As soon as you touch down, you're knocked over by the force of it, and you're on the ground, spluttering. The connection has been severed. The bond is broken. For the first time in months, you are asleep.

You wake up to noise- voices, maybe. You will them to go away. You want the darkness again. The quiet. There is a hollow place in you, thicker and deeper than the emptiness left by your stolen grace. It is a gaping maw, a black hole, and it screams inside of you. It threatens to swallow you whole. You shake your head. _Stop._ It doesn't. 

He is gone.

You shout. You scream your lungs raw. There is gasping and agony and you feel the edges of things start to blur. There are vessels of blood that pop in your eyes and you scream through them. Glass shatters all around you, and still you scream. There were lights in the darkness, but they've gone out. The voices are gone, too.

III

The gasping has calmed. The tears still come, though. You didn't know that you could cry. They come on their own, and they don't slow. You let them fall. You are so much more human than you realized. This heart that beats hard and fast against the sternum- it is your own. These hands that shake- they are your own. This burning, aching, clawing feeling is in your own throat. It threatens to choke you. You almost welcome it.

You fly to heaven. You fly to Kansas. You fly to a crossroads in Australia. You stand and shake and think, _think, **think.**_ You collapse. You don't sleep this time. There is no peace. You pray, for the first time since you were human. _His soul. I will give anything- _anything-_ for it back._ You've never been more sure. No reply comes.

IV

You are numb. There is a buzz throughout, a gentle humming, and you think of the bees. You're in heaven again. It is blank. Nothingness engulfs you and you know that you're neither up nor down, and you don't care. You don't care at all. You sink.

V

There is a whisper- it scratches at the empty place. A wispy lightness begins to fill you from within, and you see it now. The summation. Humanity has done that for you. You are able, now, to see past the trees to view the forest. The hope kindles gently in the aching parts of you, and it spreads a little, warm and soft. Peace. It is peace. It is not your own. It spreads through the emptiness and fills it- not with substance, but with suggestion- smoke inside of a bottle. This is his peace. You see that, now. You allow yourself another selfish moment to bask in the clawing, the burning. You reach out into the darkest parts of yourself and feel the empty chill. And you let it go. His peace resides in you, now. And it's almost like breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> Once again... I'm sorry.


End file.
